1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for feeding and installing hinge pins by which a door will be coupled to an automobile body during the process of assembling automobiles.
2. Description of Background Art
Generally, automobiles are assembled in an assembling line by connecting doors to an automobile body with hinge pins, coating the doors and the automobile body together so that they have a uniform coating layer without any undesired coating irregularities, then separating the doors from the automobile, trimming the doors and the automobile body separately, and thereafter putting the doors and the automobile body together. When the doors are to be mounted on the automobile body, hinge members are attached in advance to the doors and automobile body, and hinge pins are inserted into hinge member pairs, thus combining the doors with the automobile body.
After the doors and the automobile body have been coated in the coating process, the doors are temporarily detached from the automobile body, as described above, because large parts such as seats should be brought into the automobile body through large openings defined with the doors removed. To assemble the doors and the automobile body together thereafter, the hinge pins which have been detached once should preferably be fed along the assembling line and used again on the doors and the automobile body. If different hinge pins are used before and after the coating process, then it would be tedious to keep the hinge pins neatly organized and stored for ready use, and the number of hinge pins to be used would be doubled. In the coating process, the hinge pins mounted on the doors and the automobile body are coated in the same color as the doors and the automobile body which are coated. The coated hinge pins which are used again after the coating process are aesthetically advantageous because of the color match between the hinge pins and the doors and the automobile body.
When the hinge pins are to be fed along the assembling line, they may be placed on the floor of the automobile body. However, the hinge pins which are simply placed on the floor of the automobile body and fed to a final assembling process may present an obstacle to the installation of various fittings or trims in the automobile body. Therefore, the automobile body itself does not have sufficient space for placing the hinge pins thereon. Depending on the position where the hinge pins are placed, they may obstruct various components such as a floor carpet, an instrument panel, etc. as they are successively installed in the automobile body.